GAME REPORT

EWE Baskets Maintain Hope After Sweeping Virtus

EWE Baskets Oldenburg beat Virtus BolognaFiere for the second time this season to maintain hope of advancing to the EuroChallenge Quarter-Finals.

After stunning Virtus in Italy with Je'Kel Foster's buzzer-beating three-pointer on February 3, the German outfit did the double over Virtus with a 73-64 win in Oldenburg on Tuesday night.

Virtus are still in second place in Top 16 Group D at 3-2 but must now win next week at BC Kyiv to avoid falling into a tie with Oldenburg (2-3), who travel to Turkey to face Galatasaray.

Rickey Paulding had 16 points to lead a balanced EWE Baskets scoring attack.

Marko Scekic had 13 points.

Virtus point guard Earl Boykins led all scorers with 23 - eight of them in the first quarter when the Italians opened up a 22-11 lead.

They went to the second quarter with a 24-14 advantage.

EWE Baskets clawed their way back to trail 40-38 at half-time.

Virtus led by seven in the third quarter and were still on top 54-49 with 2:10 to go in the third quarter when the home side stole the momentum.

A Jason Gardner jump shot triggered a 10-0 run for EWE Baskets that put them on top to stay.

COACH QUOTES

Bologna vs. EWE Quotes

Virtus Coach Matteo Boniciolli:

"I want to congratulate Oldenburg. They really deserved to win today. They controlled the game for the most part, even when we started better than they did. For my team, it was the 11th game in 30 days, so we were mentally and physicially exhausted. But that's no excuse for losing this game."

EWE Coach Predrag Krunic:

"This is a great win against a tough opponent. I'm very happy we won today. I'm not satisfied with the way we started the game, but we picked it up in the second, third and fourth quarter. In the second half, we got into a good rythym."

EWE Player Ricky Paulding:

"This was big win for us. I'm happy for my team that we won. We started off al little flat today but picked it up in the second half. Our focus today was playing good defense. I think we accomplished our goal for the most part. All in all a great win against a tough Bologna team."